For many students who received Leaving Certificate results today their focus is now switching to Wednesday's Round 1 CAO college offers.
More than 51,000 of them are hoping to receive an offer of a place on the third-level course they have set their heart on.
It’s a strange year, not only have Leaving Certificate results been deflated compared to past and recent years, but the number of applicants to the CAO has also risen substantially.
Applications for Level 8 courses, for example, are up by more than 8%. This is due to strong population growth in this young age group.
So demand is up and there are significantly more students competing for college places.
On the other hand, more places have been created in areas of high demand, such as dentistry and other health sciences courses.
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We often look at CAO points levels and assess the system by whether the points requirements for the course have risen or fallen compared to the previous year.
When everything is stable, that’s ok, but this year, the deflation of Leaving Certificate grades means this is not the best measure of how the system is serving the country’s third-level hopefuls.
The key indicator on Wednesday will be the proportion of applicants who have received an offer of a place on their first preference course or on one of their top three preferences, and how that figure compares to previous years.
Last year, 56% of applicants to Level 8 courses received an offer on their first preference course, and 83% were offered an option within their top three.
For Level 7/6 courses, 92% of applicants were offered their first preference.
This was in Round 1, others would have secured a place on the course they wanted in subsequent rounds.
The figures were higher than the previous year, with 60% of Level 8 applicants receiving an offer for their favoured course.
How many of this year’s applicants will be so fortunate?
We will know on Wednesday, and that will be the measure of how this first year of the deflation of Leaving Certificate results has affected the class of 2025 as a whole.
